Yellow Buckeye, White Pine, Red Cedar – burnt to pay homage to Old World hermits. Burnt by the yeomen of brackish capes and chalky knolls, they for whom heavenly idols bequeathed this raw earth.
O’ olde Sycamore – pregnant with the spirits of the Redmen, black alcoholic curled beneath your lanky limbs crying petroleum tears, this is your America old man, for it is written. This is your America, this the true manifest destiny, hackneyed Negro, eyes of shale. Yes, Yankee Pizarro, brazen railwayman of Lima, weaving the will of America, entangled now for eternity in the politik of many vex’d motherlands, rubrically marked for cremation.
Dominic is in his fourth and final year of a Science/Arts degree. His interest in both the natural world and American history coalesced to build this piece – an ode not only to the once impervious, verdant and majestic forests of North America, but also the spirited and autonomic personalities that peopled its landscapes.
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